Liberals push for cuffs in banking scandal

If the Obama administration plays its cards right, liberal critics say it might finally get to do what voters angry over the financial crisis have wanted for years: slap some cuffs on banking’s bad actors.

The Libor controversy — over whether big international banks were manipulating a key interest rate — has fallen straight into the administration’s lap at the perfect time, they say.

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If the Justice Department files charges in the coming months, far from a certainty given the tricky legal questions involved, President Barack Obama gets to contrast himself – a president who went after the worst of the worst bankers – with his vision of Mitt Romney — a billionaire Wall Street tycoon who now keeps his money offshore.

Populist critics have latched on to the moment as a prime opportunity to punish Wall Street.

“Considering the importance of the financial markets to the U.S. economy from the perspectives of employment, growth and tax revenue, we believe that continuing to let criminals off the hook is an intolerable situation that must end,” Occupy the SEC, the wonky wing of the Occupy Wall Street movement, wrote on its website.

Four years after the complete meltdown of the country’s financial system the president and his Justice Department have been under fire from liberals who say he has little to show for his promise to go after Wall Street players responsible for the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Financial regulators and the Justice Department have dealt hundreds of millions of dollars in fines against big banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup Inc and Wells Fargo & Co in civil cases, but often without making them admit to the shady practices that they’ve been accused of.

Diehard proponents of cracking heads on Wall Street have been agitating for more action from an administration whose record on the issue, they say, leaves much to be desired.

Enter the Libor scandal.

“This should be a slam dunk criminal case,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a Washington based nonprofit that bills itself the “Wall Street watchdog.” “It will be inexcusable if people aren’t arrested pretty quickly here.”

Last month, London’s Barclays bank was fined hundreds of millions of dollars after being accused of manipulating a benchmark interest rate during the financial crisis that measures the cost of bank’s lending to one another and is used as a baseline for a wide range of consumer loans.

With U.S. and British authorities investigating which other of the 18 banks involved in Libor may have taken part in the scheme, the scandal seems poised to grow bigger. And over the weekend, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department is building criminal cases against several financial institutions and individuals at the center of the international controversy – charges that could hand down more hefty penalties and, more importantly, jail time.

“The Criminal Division has an ongoing criminal investigation into other institutions and individuals,” DOJ spokeswoman Alisa Finelli said on Tuesday in response to a question about the Libor probe. She said the agreement entered into with Barclay’s last month “applies only to the institution, not to any individuals and as part of the agreement, Barclay’s agreed to continue cooperating.”

The scandal over the Libor rates affected almost every Ameriican. These Bankers were manipulating the rate and ripping off everyone. Interest rates from credit cards to home loans were made higher. People like Chalons love it when the Banks cheat and steal. Let's hope the guilty are sent to jail. Willard would put a stop to this investigation, can't have his friends go to jail.

The only cuffs that need to be slapped on is obama and holder for the death of Brian Terry due to an illegal operation approved and implemented by holder and obama that was designed to whip up anger against the Second Amendment to our Constitution. If you were responsible for a death during an illegal operation you approved and implemented you would already be in jail and you would belong there. It is amazing how racism supports some people and it smears others.

Guess Obozo is just mad that after 3 1 /2 years of him bashing Wall Street and bankers. The exact same people who gave him tons of $$$ for his 2008 campaign.And now have given him the middle finger salute instead when he begs them for $$$ for his re-election.

How clueless are some of these Obama haters? When it is almost a certain fact that some Banks cheated and took money out their pockets, they still focus on President Obama. This scandal is getting ready to blow up. . This scandal is World wide and the money scammed from US is in the 100 billions. Hate Obama all you want, but don't let the banks pick your pocket.

This is sounding increasingly like intimidation. Bankers on Wall St., seeing Obama's dismal performance with the economy, are no longer supporting him. So now the tyrant-in-chief is threatening to cuff some of them and haul them off to prison.

If anyone needs to be hauled off to prison, it's that criminal in the White House.

* He has consistently violated the Constitution by refusing to enforce the law of the land. Instructing the INS not to enforce the immigration laws is just one example.

* He has pushed the economy to near-collapse by borrowing more and more money to pay back those who supported his campaign. Crony capitalism gone wild.

He is clearly in violation not only of the Constitution and the laws of this country, but of violating the laws of common decency as well.

So Obama's treasury secretary Geithner was aware of this at the time and did not report a thing. To me Geithner is complicit with the bad deeds by not reporting the problem in 2008...so it seems to me since Timothy is Obama's guy then Obama is in this mess up to his ears as well!

It has become obvious that the mafia has gotten out of drugs and prostitution and gone where the real money is. They have taken over the big banks and hedge funds where they cant steal all the money they ever wanted and more and be protected by right wing politicians. What could go wrong?

Actually, this is a good description of what happened from fromthetrenchesworldreport.com

LIBOR is the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate, which is the interest rates banks offer to pay, when institutions buy their debt. 75% of major cities across the country purchased interest rate swaps, to “protect” themselves in case interest rates went up. But what has been revealed is that 16 major banks decided to rig the interest rates, and artificially lower them. Emails indicate that then-New York Federal Reserve Chair Timothy Geithner, in 2007, knew this was going on, and not only did nothing to stop it, but covered it up. When he became Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Geithner rewarded the banks that did it with taxpayer bailouts. The effect was that all these cities lost big money, while the bankers got their mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, credit default swaps, and other gambling debts bailed out with your tax dollars. Then the bankers foreclosed on you, demanded their contracts be paid, refused to lend, and said, “Your 401k has lost $150,000, so sorry.” All this while, the Bush and Obama administrations, working with the Federal Reserve, and Wall Street and European banks, knew the whole thing was a set up, from the very beginning. Instead of throwing these criminals in jail, our government held passed sham legislation, which did nothing to protect you.

So Obama's treasury secretary Geithner was aware of this at the time and did not report a thing. To me Geithner is complicit with the bad deeds by not reporting the problem in 2008...so it seems to me since Timothy is Obama's guy then Obama is in this mess up to his ears as well!

I will bet $1,000 and give 100 to 1 odds that our Sec. of the Treasury doesn't get a pair of those cuffs which at least at this point looks like he so richly deserves just like our Attorney General looks like he deserves fa pair for his shennigans with Fast and Furious

And we are really concerned about a man that has a Swiss Bank Account, which is nort by the way illegal for any American,no matter what his income is.

In the History of mankind no "Society Oriented" government has ever survived for any length of time.

A NUMBER OF WALL STREET TYPES ARE STILL IMPRISON TODAY BECAUSE BUSH JUNIOR AS PRESIDENT ACTED TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE IN THE MARKET. OBAMA'S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT HAS BEEN VERY TIMID ON THIS--AND STILL IS NOT ABLE TO BUY LOVE FROM A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS AND FROM RICH WALL STREETERS. THESE MEN WERE VULTURES AND SHOULD ALL BE LOCKED UP--AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN LONG IN THE SLAMMER BY NOW. Remember Synergy, world Com, EnRon executives and more? Perhaps Romney might have been doing something very bad indeed but we would know for sure if any or to what extent unless we can peel of his veil of secrecy. People like Romney hide under the tax code that he and people like him go their lobbyist to write and bribe Congress to pass into law--in a language no one but the wealthy and their tax lawyers can understand. That's how corrupt this system has become! Only the rich benefits--and they end up often calling themselves "small businesses". "persons" as corporations and they want us to feel sorry for them for being asked to contribute a little more to their country. They want to keep it all while the little people pay anywhere between 20 to 30 per cent as income tax. SHAME!

And what happens when people look further into these bankers and find out the gave money to Obama and other Dems? The focus on Mitt being a wall street insider will fall by the wayside and be replaced with why didn't the Obama admin catch what was going on long before now?

So the Dems want to see some bankers in cuffs for gaming the system... Okay...

So where were the cuffs when Fannie and Freddie collapsed? Where were the cuffs for Fannie May CEO Franklin Raines when he LIED about Fannie Mays financial health and danced out the front door with a $50 MILLION DOLLAR BONUS? Oh, that's right, Mr. Raines was a "FOOL" (Friend-of-Obama-Liberal) and Obama's chief economic consultant.

How about some cuffs for Rep Barney Frank who pulled strings to get his latest unqualified boy-toy a cushy job at Fannie May?

How about some cuffs for ultra-Lib Jamie Gorelick, who also profited handsomely ($26 Million in bonuses) during her tenure at Fannie May, overseeing the disaster that has dropped wealth for the rest of us by more than 50%? On top of her dismal performance in attempting to social-engineer home-ownership into a collapse of the housing market, Ms. Gorelick was chiefly responsible for the memo that prevented federal agencies from coordinating with each other, which had a lot to do with us not being able to "connect the dots" prior to 9/11. Over 3000 people died because Dems threw up roadblocks to prevent investigations to dig too deeply into Clinton shenaniggans... so where are her cuffs? Oh, that's right... she was a big wheel in the Clinton administration and a darling of the media elites.

How about some cuffs for AG Eric Holder for his role in Fast and Furious? His withholding of vital papers and memos that pertain to the plot to run guns into Mexico for the purpose of undermining the 2nd Amendment here has resulted in real deaths on both sides of the border. And while we're at it, how about cuffs for the swindler and TAX EVADER Marc Rich? Oh, that's right, Marc Rich was a "Friend of Clinton" as well as a Friend of Holder, who engineered his full pardon in the closing days of the Clinton Presidency, along with the FALN terrorists who had the blood of at least six innocent people on their hands.

And why isn't former Governor Corzine in handcuffs for his role in the loss of $1.2 BILLION Dollars from M.F. Global? Remember all the moral outrage at Bernie Maddoff? What makes Corzine any different? Oh, that's right, Corzine is another darling of the Left and the Media, and ANOTHER "FOOL" (Friend-Of-Obama-Liberal)

I agree the bad actors need to be put in handcuffs and eventually to jail, but the idea that electing Mitt Romney will open the gates to favoritism and the inside track to skirting the law is beyond laughable.

Well, our crooks in DC have a choice to make. They can go after the LIBOR crooks...or they can go after the crooks at HSBC. I'm betting they go after HSBC to draw attention away from their pals that tweaked the LIBOR.